Uncommon Sense: Parenting Pointers: Suggestions from Thirty-Three Years of Teaching: Part 3

Perhaps because I worked with teenagers (and their families) for all of my adult life, I became attuned to how parental choices shaped a child’s behavior. I remember being shocked after a conversation with a parent during which the parent berated her child and told me, his teacher, exactly how she felt about him. During another conversation, a parent made it clear that she didn’t have any influence on her daughter. Her daughter ran the show. She was the mom, but the daughter had the real power. More often, I remember hanging up the phone and thinking, “I just learned how good parents function.” Parents who problem solved with their children, held their children accountable for their actions, modeled functional and ethical behavior, and enlisted me, their child’s teacher, to be their ally in raising a competent, compassionate, and ethical person!

My students’ parents helped me be a better parent to my own children and to help coach parents who were struggling. I kept notes and here is the third (and final) list of things that I have noted over more than thirty years of working with teens and their families:

Make the present as or more important than the future. How many times have you heard someone say, “this will be important for your future,” or “You will need this in high school,” or “This will help you get into college?” Yes, we must make sure our children are prepared for the road ahead, but not at the price of the present. And there is a second piece to this: what does it communicate to kids if we are constantly trying to get them fixed up for the future? What message do they hear when we push them to do things for some intangible future reward? Start the college process at the very end of sophomore year of high school and no sooner. Thinking of college prior to then also communicates that you are not enough now. You need to be more. How depressing.

Make sure you are a positive partner with those who teach your child. Work hard to build bridges with your children’s teachers, both at their day schools as well as their coaches, directors, and religious educators. They see your child in a way that could help you parent more effectively. They can benefit from your understanding of your child. One of my students’ parents gave me a letter entitled, “Our Child” at the beginning of the year that succinctly and poignantly communicated their perceptions about their son to me, his teacher. It gave me insight that helped me meet his needs and create a strong relationship more quickly and strongly.

Yes, we all pick our battles with our children. There are battles worth fighting and battles that should never be battles.  Can we talk about why there are battles? Some kids are more confrontational. Some parents have a personal style that invites conflict. Yet, we are the parents, they are the children. As a teacher, I have found that one of the most dangerous and problematic family dynamics is when the child runs the show. The parent chooses not to pick any battles. There are none because the child wins with or without a fight. The real battle is to avoid the battle. The child learns that the parent does not want conflict and therefore the threat of confrontation or a little yelling and the parent melts. There are alternatives to yelling and screaming. Threats, grounding, and restrictions only go so far. Shared decision-making, family councils, and sometimes the use of a third party are all means of teaching children how to share power. By the way, this starts before a child can walk! Ultimately, the adults must be in charge. If the child is in charge, we are all in trouble.

Many of us would prefer not to pay taxes. We must pay taxes, not only because bad things will happen to us if we don’t, but also because our taxes support things we value. Sometimes, going to family gatherings, church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, or completing chores is not something we want to do. But we are obligated to do so. We have a duty, a responsibly, that we must fulfill. Children have these obligations, too. It is just as important that they learn what it means to live up to them. Don’t let kids off the hook for this “don’t want to, but just have to” type of obligation. Don’t bribe them to do them. A spoonful of sugar teaches us that medicine needs to be sweet.  Instead, teach children that when we have an obligation, we live up to it even if it is unpleasant or if there are tempting alternatives. As a child, a member of a family, a member of a religious community, a student in a school, we must play our role and that often entails giving of ourselves. Teach kids to value this and to understand how this is much more than medicine but critical to the workings of our family and community.

Be very aware of your child’s use of the internet. Stay up to date on the latest apps and trends and discuss them with your child. Watch social media use, especially after the lights go out and you believe your child to be asleep. Have a discussion about when and how we use screens. Many families now have a recharging bank in a commonplace and all the phones land there (including the parents’ phones). In our house, all computers were in public rooms, not in bedrooms.

Read to them. Read with them. Read yourself. Read as a family. Join book clubs as a group. The research is totally clear: children who enjoy reading and regularly read for pleasure have an advantage in and out of school. Both their academic and emotional skills are improved dramatically (and drama activities have similar benefits). If you aren’t a reader, become one. I mean it. Then help your child become one.

Weave a web of supportive and important people around them. Even if family lives miles away, keep your children in touch. Have regular family events. If members of the family are in other places, call them together. Foster your child’s relationship with cousins, neighbors, and other people who will support their growth. When our son entered high school, someone asked why he needed a counselor when his mother was a counselor at the school. My wife answered, “He needs to have someone to talk to when we are the problem.” Your children may not always come to you with issues. Provide them with strong relationships from whom they can learn and to whom they can turn.

These three lists are not comprehensive. Different parents both need coaching and can coach different skills. That is why teachers, grandparents, neighbors, aunts and uncles, coaches, and others share some parenting tasks with moms and dads. The key is our willingness to reflect and improve. Just as our children are never really done growing up, we are never done learning how to be the best parents we can.